Monday, May 05, 2014

Low-Carb, Gluten-Free, Paleo Baking Experiments

It is my non-professional opinion that anyone who doesn't need to eat low-carb, low-sugar, gluten-free, or paleo would never do it because the ingredients are so expensive, difficult to track down, and you need so many of them!

Here is the result of three different trips to four different stores, and I was still missing coconut sugar....

I don't need to eat gluten-free, knock on wood and thank goodness. But I have friends who do, so I jumped at the opportunity to review this Gluten-Free Bread cookbook. This explains the potato starch, tapioca flour, almond meal, sorghum flour, flaxseed, xantham gum, arrow root, chickpea flour, chia seeds, and rice flour. Phew. See, you need a combination of things to make up for what wheat flour does on its own. I had grand plans to bake a bunch from the book at once and bring to my GF friend when she had surgery, but it took so long to find all the ingredients I've only managed a few experiments so far. I'll post about them in the next few days, and continue doing so as I try things out.

The Paleo Chocolate Lover's Cookbook was a Christmas gift but I didn't really crack into it until lately. It's another example of obscure ingredients, although there are fewer, and they tend to repeat throughout the cookbook. Paleo is closer to how we eat at my house because paleo uses nut flours and coconut flour and coconut milk, without the higher-carb wheat replacements that often make up gluten-free baking. Paleo tends to be gluten-free, but is more limited. Or limited differently. I still have to find different sweetening options because honey and maple syrup, the two most frequent paleo sweeteners, are too high in sugar. Some call for coconut sugar, which I've heard is lower carb. If only I could find it....

2 comments:

Sugar is sugar, unfortunately (so says our endocrinologist), so I think you're stuck with using the erythrytol or other sugar-alcohols. On the other hand, a bit of vanilla extract helps things to taste sweet, so there's that. We've found that mixing sweeteners - a bit of stevia with a bit of erythrytol plus maybe some equal - really helps things to taste sweet enough, and more balanced than just single-source sweeteners.

Well, coconut sugar was used in Paleo, but Paleo people aren't concerned with sugar. I'm already replacing for when they call for maple syrup and honey, but of course both of those are also liquid so it gets tricky.

So you think coconut sugar isn't any better? I just hate the chemical aftertaste of all the substitutes. I know it doesn't bother everyone but I just can't. I've thrown away entire cakes....